Last week was nfpSynergy’s client Insight meeting, with the usual mix of presentations about the latest happenings in the charity sector.
First up was the ever-enigmatic Joe Saxton, nfpSynergy’s Driver of Ideas, and in his line of fire were socio-economic trends and thoughts about how different our society will be in the next decade.
Socio-economic change and the 21st Century Donor
Joe Saxton, Driver of Ideas at nfpSynergy
“We’re getting older and living longer”
Socio-economic changes are barely visible to the naked eye, but through past and forecasted data we can clearly see that the UK’s population is ageing rapidly. What this means for the charity sector is that society is going to be broken up into different categories, and fundraisers need to target new audiences in new ways.
Young professionals who don’t have children until their late thirties are the fastest growing demographic that fundraiser’s should be targeting, according to Saxton. Young professionals now have an extra ten years of independence and wealth, compared to their counterparts ten years ago. Needless to say, Saxton did ponder, “Why on earth would anyone have children?”
Up until now this group have been largely targeted to take part in “challenge” events such as Fun Runs and bike races, which in turn demonstrates their desire for a personal experience or achievement. This is the target group for innovative fundraising.
An interesting idea is that donors are not rational. Perhaps it is a modern condition that we can switch off when faced with the complex issues of war and climate change because the more we think about it, the more horrid the realisation.
As Saxton said, “to be rational makes it almost incomprehensible to deal with the world”. This doesn’t mean simplify your campaign into a trivial issue, but it does mean that the “one size fits all” fundraising appeals will no longer work. They must be targeted to each different demographic.
Saxton concluded that charities need to “Harness the emotional [rather than rational] territory in building a case for support and communicating about your work – charity information that is too dry, too factual and too passionless will be filtered out by some consumers."
Charities online
Kathryn Green, Marketing Officer and Shivani Smith, Business Development Director
“The Disasters Emergency Committee received as many donations over the internet as they did by phone during the Asian Earthquake appeal. This is the first time this has happened”
Internet use is now an integral part of our everyday lives, and as such charities need to have an online strategy that is well integrated into their general comms strategy. Some facts which support this idea, and other interesting facts besides:
• Half of the UK population go online everyday
• In the last three months a quarter of the population have been asked for money online
• People visiting charity websites has doubled over the last seven years
• 60% of charities don’t have a dedicated budget for their website
• 48% of charities use social networking
• 83% of young people use social networking
Despite these statistics, only 53% of charities have a dedicated budget for their online activity and only 22% think the internet is very beneficial for fundraising. The internet is not going to raise you millions overnight, but our data shows that the internet needs to be considered as an integral part of charities’ communications strategy.
In conclusion, there are three things you can do to control your online presence:
1. Listen. Use Google alerts, technorati, blogpulse etc
2. Joining in the conversation, Twitter, facebook
3. Have a strategy ready to deal with anything controversial
Measuring Donor Satisfaction
Jonathan Baker, Researcher
“People feel that they have the right to feel satisfied”
Cuts in government spending in the charity sector means we need to work hard to maintain relationships with our supporters. It is going to be hard to compete for audience loyalty, so you need to make them want to choose to spend money on charitable giving when they are making cutbacks on other things in their personal lives.
It is hard to put a price on satisfaction, but you can be certain that retention is cheaper than acquisition when it comes to your supporters. Nevertheless, it is easy to prove a return on investment with the amount of new acquisitions, whilst it is difficult to prove it in terms of levels of retention.
Some ways to create satisfaction:
• Don’t ask your donors for money or support in kind too often
• Let the donor decide how much they want to give
• If you do suggest an amount, be appropriate
• Tell the donor how their money is spent
• Thank your donor
• Show your donor you care about them
• Make your donor feel important
All of these things don’t apply to rational thinking - they all generate emotions. A rational thought would be, “If I donate money I want all of it to go to the cause. I don’t want the charity to spend time and resources on contacting me all the time”. Donors want all of their money to get to the cause, but also, irrationally, want you to show a high level of gratitude, which demands resources.